What does it mean to perceive the world around us? Are those who are blind really unable to perceive their surroundings? These are some of the powerful esoteric questions evoked by the last scene of The Color of Paradise, an Iranian movie directed by Majid Majidi. The film follows the life of a young blind boy Mohammed who is on summer vacation. Throughout the film, prominent male figures who should love and care of Mohammed constantly reject him. His teachers want his father to take him home, his father views Mohammed as a burden that is preventing him from creating a new life after the death of Mohammed’s mother, and the blind carpenter that briefly takes in Mohammed is unable to embrace him when he is struck with strong sadness because no one loves him.
Although Mohammed is the only disable person in the family, when speaking to his father Hashem, Mohammed’s grandmother says the only person she is concerned about is her son. This striking comment reveals a central idea in the film which is that Mohammed is able to truly understand and perceive the world around him, while his father, Hashem, is blind to it. Hashem seeks the love of a family that views him unfavorably when his own mother, son, and daughters have unconditional love for him. Hashem is afraid of the nature around him (as shown by his jerk reactions to shrieks in the distance), while Mohammed is curious and playful towards a world he is blind to.
In a dramatic final scene, Mohammed and the horse he rides upon break through a weak bridge and are caught in a strong stream in a river. Instead of immediately jumping to save him, his father hesitates and when he finally embraces him washed up on a beach, it is too late for Mohammed. Hashem cries and embraces Mohammed, whose hand remarkably moves as the film ends.
The final scene although ambiguous on Mohammed’s fate, provides clarity on the some of the films central questions. Though his father can physically see and Mohammed can only perceive through his hands, Mohammed truly understood the world around him while his father struggles to hardly understand it even after losing so much. The brightness of Mohammed’s hand symbolizes the divine ability to understand the true nature of the world around oneself without physically seeing or seeing with the “inner eye,” and the birds flying overhead symbolizes nature’s sympathy and oneness with Mohammed. The use of birds throughout the film including the woodpecker who is trying to build a home for itself is part of a tradition in Persian poetry that is especially found in the Conference of the Birds. In a way we can all be compared to the birds in the Conference of the Birds, some of us like Mohammed are like woodpeckers, toiling away to create a home, while others like Hashem are like Owls, collecting worldly possessions and blessed with the ability to see better than others, but unable to truly see what has value and what does not.
These ideas come from the movie: The Color of Paradise, The Conference of the Birds, and the S. H. N asr piece titled Islamic art and Spirituality that provided a background to my reading of the Conference of the Birds and Persian poetry which contains common symbols like birds, wine, and drunkenness.
Categories: